Operation Flashpoint 2: Dragon Rising Hands-on

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Make no mistake; you're in the Marine Corps now, mister.

By Jason Ocampo

Going into the demo of Operational Flashpoint 2: Dragon Rising, I had doubts. I was a big fan of the 2001 original game that was developed by Bohemia Interactive, but now Bohemia is off doing the ArmA series while Codemasters is developing Flashpoint 2 internally. However, after Codemasters' event in San Francisco this week, I'm excited again. This new Flashpoint looks incredibly promising for those who are looking for a more authentic take at military operations.

Don't get me wrong; I like military-themed shooters like Call of Duty 4 and Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter. But when you get down to it, those games are essentially camouflaged action games. In them, you ride roller coasters for the maximum number of thrills per minute. What I loved about Operation Flashpoint, and what I'm seeing in its sequel, is the sense freedom. When you storm a village in Flashpoint, it's not about running-and-gunning and blowing up everything you see. That'll get you killed faster than you can unload a full magazine.

Operation Flashpoint requires a more cautious and thoughtful approach than most shooters.

The story in a nutshell is that the game is set on a fictional Russian island in the Northern Pacific that has been invaded by the People's Liberation Army and the United States has sent the Marine Corps to assist the Russians. You get to play as the Marines, and it sounds like there are two acts, one that focuses on Special Forces and the other on the Marines. In addition to being able to be a grunt, you can jump into civilian and military vehicles, and there's pretty much the entire inventory of modern Chinese, Russian, and American military toys at your disposal, including M1A2 Abrams and Seahawk helicopters.

In Flashpoint 2, when you need to attack a village, you must first approach it, and given that the game world is a 25-mile long island, you can approach it from any direction you want. This is a game with realistic engagement ranges; in most shooters, you're busy blasting away at enemy soldiers yards away from you. In this one, you might come under fire hundreds of yards away from the objective, with the tracers keeping your head down as you scramble for cover.

The designers were kind enough to let me take the 360 gamepad and try it out for myself. (Rest assured, it's coming to the PC, as well as the PS3). Leading my fire team of four soldiers, I issued an order for the guys to fall into line as we ran toward the village, trying to keep a bunch of trees between the bad guys and us. Since this was a demo, they had turned invulnerability on for me , which is probably for the best considering otherwise I would have died about eight times. I issued an order for the guys to lay down suppressing fire while I got closer to the enemies defending the village. I sprinted closer, and then dove for the ground, hoping the tall grasses would conceal me from the Chinese infantry firing.

In true OpFlash style, there will be many accurately modeled vehicles and weapons.

Using binoculars, I called in a JDAM strike on a heavy weapons emplacement, and then used my M203 grenade launcher to pop grenades at squads of Chinese infantry. I then ordered my squad to move up while I sprinted into the village to engage in some house-to-house clearing. Yes, just like in Operation Flashpoint every building in the game can be entered. It makes urban combat just that much more nerve-wracking since the enemy can appear in any window. We're told the AI behavior is good enough that the designers didn't even bother trying to predict what the enemy would do. The good news is that if you're the kind of shooter player who hates squad orders, you can get through the game without giving orders to your squad; the AI will take care of everything.

If you do like barking out orders, then the controls take some getting used to, but they're pretty powerful. You can have the squad regroup on you, provide suppressing fire, advance to a certain point, flank in a certain direction, and much more.

Oh, but it gets better. The campaign is going to be mission-based, just like the original. The kicker is that it will support four-player co-op, so you can play with three others throughout the entire campaign, or by yourself. For fans that absolutely loved the hardcore nature of the first game, then yes, I'm told there's a difficulty mode where one bullet can indeed ruin your life. Of course, that kind of thing isn't exactly conducive to mass appeal, so there's going to be a more forgiving mode. With that said, there are no health packs. As one of the designers said, if your arm gets shot off, there's no magical power up that's going to give you a new one instantly.

The fictional setting is rich in visual details.

And I should mention that the game looks fantastic. The animations are a bit rough, but there's a nice amount of detail on everything, including faces. There's a 24-hour day and night cycle. The environments are destructible, so you can blow up buildings the enemy is in. And it just feels real. For example, as I was sprinting for cover in that enemy village, I noticed a Seahawk overhead; it was actually providing cover with its chain gun. But I only caught it in the corner of my eye, as the sensation of running almost feels like you're watching combat footage taken by a guy who is running with the camera.

Flashpoint 2 is being prepped for release this summer, but this is most certainly a game to keep an eye one, especially if you having more than a passing interest in what modern combat really feels like.